Week 5 Reflection

Five weeks ago I started my first ever Masters level course. I was unsure what to expect until I read some of our assignments. After reading these assignments I determined that I would be learning how to use blogs and wikis. I have never used these types of websites so I was very interested in seeing how to use them. After five weeks in this course I feel like I have gotten a good idea of how to use these sites. I believe that with a little more practice I will be able to come up with different uses for these sites. I believe that I have learned more from this class than I had expected upon entering it. I believe that the course has been very informative for me and that without the class I probably would not have ever even thought about using these types of sites in teaching.

I believe that I will be able to use this information when I become a teacher. I feel like I am getting pretty good at this type of site and feel that I would probably use them in my classes to communicate with parents and students. I believe it will be a great way for my to communicate what is expected of the children to both their parents and the students themselves. I believe that using technology is relevant in today’s school systems. There are a lot of parents who work and are very busy. They may not always have time to call a teacher and ask for information. For these parents a wiki could be a great way to communicate with the teacher. They can look there to see what their children’s assignments are. They are also able to use the wiki to speak with the teacher. Email will also be convenient for these parents. Since technology is so important in today’s world we need to make sure to use it in our schools too.

This course was very informative. I feel like I learned most of what was being taught. I feel like I do need a little more work on using a wiki. My main problem was learning how to set it up so that others could comment on my post. Eventually I found out how to do it. Because of this I feel like I may need a little more work using it. I believe that with a little more practice it will be very easy for me to set up the security on my sites. Security is definitely important when dealing with parents and students so I want to make sure that I have got my security set up in the correct manner. I want to experiment with setting up sites that everyone has to sign in to see what is on it. I believe that if I learn to do that it will make the security better for dealing with students and parents. I also feel like I need a little more time trying to come up with ways to allow students to use technology in the classroom. I have some ideas, but since I have not started teaching yet it is a little harder for me to envision some of the ways it may be used. I feel like that will come with time spent in the classroom.

I was successful in doing the course assignments, but I was a little discouraged on some of them. It is difficult to answer some of the questions if you are not a teacher. It is difficult to know some of the information asked if you are not employed by a school district. I did have some knowledge of the schools from my children being in school. I asked some of the teachers there for information which did help me with the assignments. However, it was still discouraging and made me feel like I may not belong in the class. In the end I have made it and know that I do belong here. It is just harder for me than for others because I do not have the information that most of the other students have that are currently teachers.

This course has taught me that the technology I love so much can be used in the classroom. I never knew just how much technology was being used in our local districts until I started this class and also met with the Goose Creek Chief of Technology. I did not know that every fifth grader has a computer in our district. I was very excited to learn this information. I learned that I have always thought of blogs and wikis and something that had no place in our schools. After this course I have learned that I was mistaken. They definitely can be used in our schools to help our students and their parents. I think that I need to keep an open mind to what can and cannot be used in our classroom. If I had not kept an open mind when I went into this class then I would have missed out on different uses of blogs and wikis. An open mind is very important in an educator and I need to continue to look for uses for all of the different technologies out there.